Contact: dkenney@mbl.edu, 508-289-7139 One of the startling discoveries about life on Earth in the past 25 years is that it can − and does − flourish beneath the ocean floor, in the planet’s dark, dense, rocky crust. The only way to get there is by drilling through meters of sediment until you hit rock, […]

Twenty innovative scientists from 17 institutions and five countries have been named recipients of 2016 Whitman Center Awards by the Marine Biological Laboratory. These leading scientists will receive funding and support to conduct fundamental biological research in the MBL’s Whitman Center, a vibrant, interactive research community that annually includes more than 100 principal investigators from […]

The Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) has announced the recipients of the new Whitman Center Early Career Awards, established to enable exceptional scientists early in their careers to conduct research at the MBL and take advantage of its resources and the convening power of its scientific community. The five awardees will be supported for up to […]

Mining the fluid samples she and her team collected from an actively venting, deep-sea volcano, MBL scientist Julie Huber has found an innovative way to simplify the enormous microbial diversity in the samples and hone in on specific, functionally important microbial groups. Huber and Caroline Fortunato, an MBL postdoctoral scientist, recently published their results in […]

Contact: Diana Kenney, Marine Biological Laboratory dkenney@mbl.edu; 508-289-7139 WOODS HOLE, Mass.– Bacteria usually live in mixed communities with many different kinds of bacteria present. But it’s been largely unknown how these communities are organized, because the technology didn’t exist to see how they are structured in space. This week, for the first time, scientists describe […]

Cuttlefish are astonishingly good at using camouflage to hide from their predators, so it’s right they take a starring role in a new PBS mini-series called “Natural Born Hustlers.” “Meet the planet’s greatest animal hustlers – the con artists, impersonators, and thieves – animals that will do whatever it takes to survive,” the show’s introduction […]

The study of life processes has long depended on a small set of so-called model organisms that are amenable to laboratory manipulation and emerged, whether by reasoned choice or experimental serendipity, as favorites for study by legions of scientists and students. But not by everyone. As Amy Gladfelter, professor of cell biology at Dartmouth College […]

Contacts: Tom Abate, Stanford Engineering tabate@stanford.edu; 650-736-2245 Diana Kenney, Marine Biological Laboratory dkenney@mbl.edu; 508-289-7139 STANFORD, Calif. and WOODS HOLE, Mass. − Millions of years ago, even before plate tectonics had nudged the continents into their current locations, jellyfish were already moving through the oceans using the same pulsing motions we observe today. Now through clever […]

A group of leading scientists representing a wide range of disciplines has formed a unified initiative to support basic research, technological development, and commercial applications to better understand and thoughtfully harness capabilities of Earth’s vast systems of microorganisms. In a Science article published Oct. 30, 2015, 17 U.S. scientists–including microbiologists, physicists, chemists and physicians–will announce the creation […]